“Are you completely incompetent?” Dante slammed his fist on the table. “All we have to do is walk to the nearest fishing village, throw some coins at the first slack-jawed idiot we see, and row away back to Mallorca, or even all the way to Marrakesh if needs be. They don’t know who we are. They don’t know what we look like. They’re probably not even looking for us at all. And you want to run and hide in some church cellar? Absolutely not. I’m leaving, with or without you fools. I’ll probably be better off on my own anyway.”
The young Italian stood up and snatched a crumbly black loaf from the table to stuff in his pocket. He turned to find Major Zidane in the doorway behind him, and Syfax reached out to gently shove the smaller man back into his seat at the table. “You’re not going anywhere, except with the captain. This Magellan character knows we were in a plane, so we’ve got to be Mazigh, and he knows we were coming from Italia, so he knows you’re Italian. So unless you think you can cover up that stupid accent of yours, I guarantee you’ll be in a cell by the end of the week. If this bastard is as paranoid and controlling as everyone says, he’ll be rounding up every poor fool from Valencia to Madrid just for looking or sounding funny.”
Dante slumped back in his seat, scowling. He took out his bread and began picking at it.
Taziri used the commotion to slip back out into the hall, but she had barely taken two steps before she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Captain?” It was Kenan, but the earnest young lieutenant wasn’t grinning for once. “If it’s all the same to you, ma’am, I’d rather go north with you instead of south with the major.”
“It’s not the same to me, Kenan. The major is going to need your help if he runs into trouble. And knowing him, he will run into trouble. I’m counting on you to be the sensible one. Keep your eyes open. Give him options and ideas before he pulls out that knife of his.” Taziri raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d be okay with this. It’ll be like old times.”
“That’s just it, captain,” he whispered. “I transferred to Section Four to get away from him. I didn’t like the old times, even if it was only a year or so. He treats me like a little kid. And the things he does to people, I mean, I know they were criminals, but still.” The lieutenant looked queasy. “He’s dangerous.”
“Well, I’m sorry you feel that way, lieutenant, but you’ve got your orders,” Taziri said. “If things go well, it will only be for a few days and you’ll be safe and sound back home before you know it.”
“And if it doesn’t go well, I’ll probably end up in front of an Espani firing squad.” He turned and sulked back into the dining room before she could say anything else. Her instinct was to call him back and give him a severe dressing down for his attitude and threaten him with some sort of disciplinary action, but she couldn’t think of any way to punish him beyond forcing him to accompany Syfax. And the truth is, he’s right. He very well might end up in front of a firing squad. On any other day, that thought might have troubled her more, but she had too much to worry about already.
Three passengers to shepherd. An experimental engine battery to protect. A family less than four hundred miles away that I can’t reach. And unknown days or weeks holed up in the basement of some freezing Espani church listening to Dante complain.
It took almost two hours for the hidalgo’s household to pack up and lock up, but eventually everyone was properly dressed for a long walk down a cold road, every back was aching under a pack laden with food and blankets, and every animal in the stable had been trotted out into the yard. Taziri wasn’t particularly shocked by the huge striding bird that the hidalgo’s wife had saddled and mounted. Its clicking talons and massive beak were worrisome, as were the blood red plumes around its eyes, but she could almost think of it as a giant ostrich, and that was a bit less frightening. Not that she had ever seen such a thing before, but there were more than a few strange and enormous beasts from the New World in Marrakesh. Tamed megatheras labored in the factories alongside the huge engines, while the smaller sivatheras drew the carriages of the wealthy, as well as those who wished to appear wealthy for a night. She had even heard of the racetracks where giant birds sprinted for the gamblers and the well-dressed ladies, who watched from a safe distance in their tents, through their binoculars.
But the cat. The cat was something else altogether. When the beast called Atoq padded silently out of his pen, Taziri had nearly screamed. In fact, she probably would have screamed if she had not been surrounded by perfectly calm young Espani who barely gave the monster a second look. She had nothing to compare it to except the great lions of the eastern plains, but standing in the snowy yard, only a stone’s throw from the creature, she was certain that Atoq was larger than any lion. His shoulders were thicker and broader than any great cat or dire wolf, his head and neck were muscled like an elephant’s leg, and the huge fangs spearing down from his mouth told her not only that he could slice her apart without even opening his maw, but also that he could open his jaws at least as wide as the fangs were long. And they were very long.
When Dona Qhora emerged from the house, Taziri almost mistook her for the Eranian girl. Unlike everyone else who was wearing black and brown and gray coats, gloves, and scarves, the hidalgo’s wife strode out into the snow in buff colored trousers that disappeared into her tall, shining black boots. Over her high-necked white blouse she wore a tight purple vest, and over that a long blue coat decorated in silver threadwork across the breasts with elaborate silver ropes draped from her shoulders. Qhora paused to adjust her white leather gloves, then took her white fur coat from one of the students and wrapped it over her tailored blue one. And lastly she set on her jet black hair a blue and silver hat that by rights should have been identical to the hidalgo’s wide-brimmed black hat, except that she had folded up the edges of the brim and fixed them to the top of the hat with large blue satin ribbons. The result was a tricorn headdress resembling a festival ship ready to set sail.
“I’ve never seen a hat quite like that,” Taziri said. No need to mention that the Italians wear them that way, too.
“It was my husband’s dress uniform, as was the coat.” Qhora gestured to the blue and silver affair under her furs. “When he put them aside, I had them tailored to my own use. Military service is nothing to be ashamed of. It should be recognized and celebrated. But since he is too modest to parade for the masses, then I’m happy to do it for him.”
Don Lorenzo gave some final instructions to his students and staff, rattling off directions to each person in rapid-fire Espani. The horses were all heading north, but there weren’t enough for everyone. Taziri had meant to insist that she not be given one, at least not yet, but the gallant young diestros insisted that the ladies ride, and she knew enough about Espani men to give them their moment of chivalry. After all, she was still exhausted from the long march up the road from the crash, and, she reasoned, she was no good to anyone if she collapsed.
So when they set out, the hidalgo led the way with his wife at his side and her huge cat trailing, and behind them rode Taziri, Shahera, Nicola, and the scowling Dante. The four senior students followed them on foot, talking and laughing quietly. She envied them.
They aren’t afraid of anything. Still young. Still immortal. No responsibilities or duties. Only possibilities, egos, and libidos.
Taziri gave Kenan one last, sharp salute. The sad-eyed boy returned it half-heartedly and trudged away after the hulking major and the other junior students heading south.
The rough road north to Zaragoza was a far cry from the machined highways of Marrakesh. This was a dirt and gravel track, pitted and muddy and icy, winding its slow way around hills and through villages and over ancient stone bridges across tiny frozen creeks. For the first half hour, Taziri sat miserably in the saddle trying to remember the last time she had sat on a horse. Maybe when she was nine or ten when she visited her uncle’s farm in the highlands. Trapped between the lumbering mass of the horse under her legs and the sweltering mass of wool, leather, and fur on her back, she was almost ready to offer the horse to one of the young men trailing behind on foot, but the gentle rocking of the saddle and sighing of the wind through the pines soon had her eyes drooping and her head nodding.